The American Exception

“Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way,” or so Tolstoy contends in the famous first line of Anna Karenina. Perhaps this is true of families, but it is not true of countries. While citizens in all rich countries tend, on average, to be happy, almost uniquely among rich countries, citizens of the United States report a high degree of religious faith, and great confidence in their ability to make free choices and control their own lives. These are oft-noted examples of American exceptionalism, and also factors that tends to correlate with high levels of Life Satisfaction.

So does this mean Americans are happier than everyone else? In the end, no. Higher levels of freedom and religious faith in the United States are balanced out by other negative factors (see graph). Americans are, on average, less healthy than citizens of many European countries. Because health is such an important factor in self-perceived wellbeing, this affects our Index results, even though the difference between European and American health averages is relatively small. Americans also suffer higher divorce rates, and Americans tend not to elect female political leaders. This latter factor correlates very strongly with societal averages of life satisfaction.

We suspect this correlation arises because societies in which women frequently achieve high political office are societies in which even historically disadvantaged groups have the opportunity to advance to the top rungs of the social ladder. Hence, all rich nations (those with average annual incomes above US $20,000 per person) are certainly “happy families” in the sense that their people report, on average, high levels of self-perceived wellbeing. However, in contrast to Tolstoy’s famous dictum, this happiness is produced in many different ways.